Week 6 Blog 2

The governments of Argentina and France, co-chairs of the conference, and 53 delegations representing international organizations and donor countries involved in the process of reconstruction and development of Haiti have contributed to drawing up an aid program aimed at urgently reinforcing food security and rural development in Haiti, and have committed themselves to holding a top-level meeting as soon as possible in order to set in motion the joint aid program, aimed at the most vulnerable population, which has been agreed during today’s conference.

The conclusions document, adopted by the meeting participants, highlights the commitment of both donor countries and international organizations towards development in Haiti, particularly considering the problems generated by the soaring food prices and food insecurity affecting the most vulnerable populations.

In view of this situation, the participants have resolved to respond in the short, medium and long run to the needs of the population by implementing programs and measures which will allow to ensure food assistance for the population, reaffirm food security, reinforce nutrition and reactivate agricultural and rural production rapidly by means of investments to promote structural and sustainable changes.

In order to ensure that these actions are set in motion, all the participants have agreed to carry on working to improve coordination and monitoring mechanisms in order to improve aid efficiency.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/LSGZ-7GLHM2?OpenDocument

2 comments July 16, 2008 haiti101

Week 6 Blog 1

The Haitian government has cut petrol subsidies, pushing the price of fuel up after the government redirected money to other programs.

The subsidies had been implemented by Rene Preval, the president, to prevent instability after April riots over the high cost of food that left at least seven dead.

Prices immediately rose by 80 cents-per-gallon to $6.14, a huge increase in a country where people live on less than two dollars a day.

The government, which is short of funds, said it could not afford assistance that had amounted to an estimated US$15 million over three months, while attempting to combat the ongoing food crisis.

Global issue

Kesner Pharel, a Haitian economist, said Preval could “pay some political price” for allowing the increases, which were announced on Thursday.

“It’s a difficult choice but…if you keep losing money like that you have a price to pay in the medium and long term,” Pharel said.

Port-au-Prince’s public taxis, or “tap-taps,” raised fares to cope with rising fuel costs, prompting arguments with passengers.

“The passengers don’t want to pay. We have to fight with them,” said Molier Benoit, whose syndicate doubled its fares to 12 gourdes (31 cents) for a ride in a metal frame built onto the back of a truck.

Rising fuel costs have strained economies and spurred protests around the world, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer, to pledge to increase output at a meeting between producer and consumer nations last week.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/06/2008627233814418599.html

Add comment July 16, 2008 haiti101

Week 5 Blog 2

In the deserpate of cirumstances i guess anybody will do anything to survive. As you know Haiti is an extremely poor country that is slowly on its way to killing its own people. I just finished readng an article in which during a five-month long investigation, ABC News’ Dan Harris uncovered disturbing evidence of modern-day slavery. Child slavery is against the law in Haiti, but an estimated 300,000 children there are forced to become domestic laborers

“I don’t think they don’t love them,” he said. “They love them but because they think they cannot take care of them so they just turn them over to another person and the other person ensures them that they will take care of the child. But when the child gets into the house they do not keep their promises.” http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/404964.aspx

Trafficing and slavery is not only hapening in Haiti but in many countries around the world inculding the United States. This is an epedemic that makes me sick. Children are not for sale and should never considered less than human. These children are being robbed of their childhood and being exposed an corrupted to the most horrible of things. It is unfair and cruel to allow this many children to be subjected to slavery. The United States did so much to ban slavery, that we sometimes forget tat the rest of the world has not yet caught up.

 

1 comment July 9, 2008 haiti101

Week 5 Blog 1- Frontline News Clip

In the frontline news clip i feel that Colin Powell’s influence with the Iraq conflict and his experience in and witht the war has guided him to think and convey in, that containment would be a success with Iraq but Wolfowitz believed in preemption. The Presidents who dealt with Iraq used the United Stated as its influence through out the world. Iraq’s containment was not going according to plan due to the fact that Saddam would continue to find new tools and resources to battle the idea.  There is an us and a them like everything…and Bush makes the distinction between the two. This video has a set view on Colin Powell and i dont think is the most accurate. I feel that within politics everyone is bias and it is hard to portray something totally equal.

Add comment July 9, 2008 haiti101

Week 4 Blog 2

WFP is rapidly expanding operations in Haiti, reaching more hungry people thanks to a US$23 million allocation from funds raised through the organisation’s high food price appeal.

In the months ahead, more and more people will receive food assistance – 2.3 million by the end of the year. “Our food is critical to helping people cope with high prices – a daily burden on people who were already very poor,” said WFP Regional Director Pedro Medrano.

WFP family food rations allow hope to return to households struggling to make ends meet and which buy less and less food as food prices increase. Beneficiaries receive a basket of food that will feed their family for one month.

Better access to food for the most hungry will also help stabilize Haitian society, which was rocked by fatal food riots earlier this year. The Haitian population is highly vulnerable to food price increases: Haiti imports over 50 percent of its food including rice — its staple diet; three-quarters of Haitians live on less than US$2 per day. Households spend more than half their incomes on food.

Donors to WFP operations in Haiti include: the United States (US$ 23.3 million); Canada (US$ 19.8 million), France (US$ 3.7 million), UN Central Emergency Revolving Fund –CERF (US$ 3.3 million), Switzerland (US$ 1.4 million) and several others. Overall they have provided more than US$ 62 million, which is enough to cover augmented needs for 2008. However, WFP still needs more than US$ 61 million to cover Haitian beneficiaries’ needs for 2009.

2 comments July 2, 2008 haiti101

Week 4 Blog 1- Safe Area Gorazde

The reading was extremely engaging and provided useful material and insight. At first i thought i would not be able to understand the differences but the descriptions were clear and concise, although very detailed in violence and destruction.

Sacco combines the oral histories of his interviewees with his own observations on conditions in the enclave as well as his feelings about being in a danger zone. He keeps his primary focus on roughly half a dozen people, which helps to structure the collection of vignettes into something of a narrative, while also including interviews with a number of other people. Sacco stands back and lets the interviewees tell their stories, keeping his editorializing and personal reflections to interludes. One can feel his outrage over the conditions and the circumstances, but he doesn’t allow that outrage to boil over and distract from the story.

This reading tied very well into the discussion of Clinton’s Administration. Clinton was aware but did not take action similar to the attacks and killings in Rwanda. The horrors that can take place around the world are astounding but what is even more unbelievable is sometimes the lack of aid and attention needed to stop the act.

Add comment July 2, 2008 haiti101

Week 3 Blog 2

U.S. officials are celebrating the official opening of a $75 million embassy compound in the Haitian capital.

Behind imposing walls and set back from the street on a former sugarcane field near the Port-au-Prince airport, the 10-acre compound features an atrium, space for more than 1,000 workers and a swimming pool.

U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson and other officials dedicated the facility Monday in a ceremony with ousted Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Eduoard Alexis and Cabinet members, who were fired by Parliament after food riots but have not yet been replaced.

Haiti has been without a prime minister or Cabinet since April 12.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-0624haiti,0,2903335.story

When i read this story i felt as if the Haitians are being left to fend for themselves while the US builds up its control. The US can obvisously afford to build a 75 million dollar building but cannot afford to give some of that money to help aid the Haitian people who are living in poverty and searching for food and fresh water. I read many of articles just liek this one, where money is going into the government but none of the money ever reaches the people. When will the people get to live like Haitians should live?

4 comments June 25, 2008 haiti101

Week 3 Blog 1

An array of human rights groups has strongly criticized the United States government, saying it withheld money meant to provide clean drinking water to Haiti as leverage for political change in the country. The activists, in a report released Monday, called the delay of $54 million in international loans to the Haitian government “one of the most egregious examples of malfeasance by the United States in recent years.”

years.”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/world/americas/24haiti.html?ref=americas

The United States is constantly being ridculed for their lack of aid to the haitian people however with the economic crisis that is faced all over the world I do not know how the US was supposed to loan the Haitian governement anything. I sympathize with the haitian people but at the same time I realize the postisions of the American people. Something needs to be done in Haiti. Aid is a priority but the US is not following through like they should. I am constatnly contradicting myself on what to think and how we can help as Americans. haiti is struggling, but whos responsibility is it to fix the problem?

1 comment June 25, 2008 haiti101

Week 2 Blog 2

One unified demand: Withdraw Brazilian and all foreign occupation troops from Haiti!
 
Demonstrators in many Brazilian cities and San Francisco denounced Brazil’s brutal 4-year military occupation of Haiti — on the occasion of the May 28th visit to Haiti by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, marking the 4th anniversary of the arrival of Brazilian U.N. troops in Haiti. Organized labor played a key role in coordinating the actions in Brazil.
 
In Mexico City on May 30th, a high-level Mexican labor delegation, responding to the call of their colleagues in Brazil, met at the Brazilian embassy to demand withdrawal of Brazil’s troops from Haiti and respect for Haitian sovereignty.
 
In Brazil, the National Campaign for Brazilian Troops Out of Haiti organized actions as part of the May 28th national day of struggle by the CUT trade union federation, seeking a 40-hour workweek. The banner “Brazilian Soldiers Out of Haiti” flew at rallies and marches in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Salvador and state capitals throughout Brazil. Speakers connected the money squandered on the Haiti occupation, with the pressing but unmet needs of people back home in Brazil.
 
Leading forces in the Troops-Out-of-Haiti campaign include the Unified Black Movement (MNU) and Black Youth Network, along with significant elements of Lula’s own Workers Party (PT), the Landless Peasants Movement (MST), and the CUT labor federation. They collected some 6,000 petition signatures, to be presented to President Lula by PT Federal Deputy Fernando Ferro.

 
The San Francisco rally, called by Haiti Action Committee with participation by the anti-war group ANSWER, San Francisco Labor Council, Global Women’s Strike and Gabriela Network, denounced the UN mission in Haiti as having been installed, under Brazilian command, to legitimize the 2004 coup against the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
 
UN forces arrived in Haiti as a proxy force, 3 months after US troops kidnapped President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004 and installed a coup regime. In the aftermath of the coup, more than 8,000 Aristide supporters were killed and thousands more ‘disappeared’, exiled or thrown into prison, where most  remain locked up to this day. The entire government apparatus, down to the village level, was ‘cleansed’ of Aristide supporters during the coup.

Brazil commands the 9,000-strong UN ‘peacekeeping’ force in Haiti, which committed massacres in poor working-class neighborhoods on July 6, 2005, on December 22, 2006, February 2007 and many other occasions — attacking the civilians who are the base of support for President Aristide and his widely popular Lavalas political movement. Scores of women, children and men were killed in these massive, day-long raids involving as many as 400 troops, tanks and helicopter gunships. UN troops have also been caught committing rapes, sexual abuse of children and running prostitution rings in the poor neighborhoods. The anger of Brazilian unionists and peace activists was heightened when it was announced that more than 464 million Reais (US$290 million) have been spent over the past four years — funds desperately needed for people’s needs in Brazil — to attack the sovereignty of the Haitian people.
 
Nevertheless, Brazil is feeling growing pressure to withdraw its troops. In Mexico City on May 30th, a delegation of Mexican trade unionists met to dialogue with officials at the Brazilian Embassy in Mexico City, joining their Brazilian comrades in calling for Brazil’s military to leave Haiti now. The delegation included Salome Herber Aguilar, a leader of the Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNT-MMSRM ); Nivardo Rodriguez Morales and Fernando Mendoza, leaders of Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE; and Armando Pasos Cabrera, from SITUAM. Like the Brazilians, they presented an Open Letter to President Lula raising the Troops Out Now demand.
 

www.haitiaction.net

This article is great news for the Haitians but the people will still be struggeling to fully take back and control Haitian government. Haiti is an extremley poor country and in turn struggles constantly to stay alive and in control. Brazil has not yet given complete control back to the Haitian people and it will take time to give up power but this is taking a step in the right direction for the country of Haiti. This could lead to the ever growing problem of food shortage and government choas. By withdrawling Brazilian troops this can be positive and negative. Stay tunned for more information!

1 comment June 18, 2008 haiti101

Week 2 Blog 1

the past few months has devastated impoverished Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Angry crowds smashed shop windows and rampaged through the streets in several Haitian cities in April, leaving six people dead and prompting the resignation of the Caribbean nation’s prime minister.International aid groups and foreign governments rushed in new shipments of emergency aid, and Haitian President Rene Preval quickly announced subsidies to ease prices on staples such as rice and beans, which have doubled in the past year.In a country where about 80 percent of the 9 million residents already were struggling to survive on $2 a day before the price hikes hit, the situation has gone from bad to dire. The main problem is instability,” said Sophie Perez, head of programs in Haiti for Atlanta-based CARE USA, an international aid group. “Without stability and security, there will be no investments by foreign firms, and aid groups will find it difficult to work in Haiti.” The steep rise in food prices has prompted several aid groups and the Haitian government to call for renewed efforts to bolster Haiti’s own food production. But the challenges are severe. Erosion and soil exhaustion are widespread, with much of the island stripped of vegetation by charcoal merchants who supply the poor with the only fuel they can afford. Still, the countryside is filled with small farmers. Haiti’s historical breadbasket is centered on the Artibonite River valley, a few hours north of the capital, where rich soil and adequate water supplies have supported generations of farmers.

Today rice farmers still tend their plots but say they can’t afford to raise more than they need for personal use. “I used to work 50 plots of rice, but now I only raise enough to feed my own family,” said Dieu Maitre Guillaume, 49, who lives with his extended family in two ramshackle huts beside the valley’s main highway. “The price of a bag of fertilizer was 250 gourdes [about $6.50] a few years ago, and now it is 2,500 gourdes [about $65]. That’s killing us.”

www.ajc.com

I think throughout this summer I will continuously be informing everyone with the ever growing issue of starvation and poverty in Haiti. This article is just another example of how Haiti struggles on a day to day basis with food.  I truly do not know how to fix the problem of Haiti’s food shortages. We can continue to give the Haitian people aid but how long can anyone do that for. Haiti’s land is continuously being destroyed by either rain or fire. People are dying at an alarming rate but how much can any do without sustainability. The government and the people of Haiti are fed up with being hungry. They want to experience what it is like to be full again. Rising food prices and fuel costs are helping add to the every growing death tolls. The earth is only so big and only has so many resources if we deplete our resources and stop renewing them many other countries with have the same problem as the Haitians. I do not know how to cure this problem, but it is a problem that we cannot ignore.

 

 

Add comment June 18, 2008 haiti101

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